Reviews

I read and review both historical fiction and non-fiction, but also enjoy biographies, crime and some contemporary fiction. Please note that unless stated that I have received these books directly from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review, I either purchase my own copies or source them from my local library service.​Links to Amazon or Booktopia are only for further reference

I love a good time-travel or time-switch story and I downloaded this novel by Pamela Harsthorne from my local library’s e-books catalogue. (The attractive cover was a good drawcard.) Grace is a young woman who has been living in Indonesia and has just inherited her godmother Lucy’s house in York. She moves in with the aim of doing it up to sell, but almost as soon as she arrives she is haunted by strange whisperings for someone called “Bess” and the bizarre appearance of rotten apples in unexpected places. It isn’t long before she finds herself being possessed by the mind of Hawise, a servant of the Tudor age, who may be the mother of Bess. Grace struggles to deal with these out-of-time experiences, and resorts to consulting both a sympathetic modern-day witch as well as a sceptical psychologist, who believes her visions are all part of post-traumatic syndrome suffered after Grace was caught up in the famous Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand. There is much to enjoy in this story, especially the vividness of life in York during a long-gone age, but Hawise is a warmer and more appealing heroine than Grace, who is “all about me” and I really don’t know what her attractive neighbour Drew sees in her. Drew’s daughter Sophie is the usual teen in identity crisis at the mercy of some wicked Goths. (With Goths in my family who are nothing like the stereotypes, I still despair of the clichés and myths surrounding them!) As is often the case with complicated time-switch or parallel universe stories, it feels a bit hasty towards the end and certain aspects aren’t resolved to the reader’s satisfaction. In this case, some historical evidence that the dastardly Frances and wife Agnes got their just desserts for what happened to Hawise: perhaps literally via a dessert, e.g. long and agonising deaths as a result of eaten rotten apple pies!Apart from these issues, this is an enjoyable well-paced read and it’s very likely I’ll read more of this author’s books if their historical aspects are as good as this one.